Saint Clare

Clare was born in Assisi in 1194 by Favarone di Offreduccio and Ortolana. The noble family environment favored religious education. At the age of eighteen, after the example of Francis, she decided to totally embrace the word of God by going to the Porziuncola; there her hair was cut, a sign of her conversion, and she was led to the convent of the Benedictine nuns of San Paolo, in Bastia Umbra. Her choice of giving up all material comforts and possessions didn’t meet her father’s approval, so she took shelter in the little Church of San Damiano, where she would be joined by other women: the “Poor Ladies of San Damiano” (secluded nuns devoted to prayer). She stayed there for forty-two years; she experienced illness but also the closeness of her sisters and her mother who, in time, join her.

In those years extraordinary events took place, such as the removal of troops Saracen from Assisi. On the 9h of August 1253, two days before Clare’s death, Pope Innocent IV approved the Rule of the Order of Poor Clares.

The canonization was not long in coming: in 1255 she was proclaimed a Saint by Alexander IV. In February 1958, Pius XII declared Clara the Patron Saint of television and telecommunications.